Gluten-free and SCD

Category Archives: Sauces

I’ve written time and again about my brother and how he has played – and continues to play – an integral part of my blogging. If it wasn’t for him I’m sure I wouldn’t have started cooking and baking gluten-free and dairy-free, and much less thought of starting a food blog. So when he asked me if he could guest post here and share a recipe, the answer was of course! Please give a warm welcome to my little brother who is sharing an easy, basic recipe for tomato sauce served with rice vermicelli.

He was inspired to make this after seeing a recipe for spaghetti with tomato sauce in The Silver Spoon for Children – a delightful cookbook, by the way, with charming illustrations – which, after looking at the recipe, seems to be a basic tomato sauce, if not a staple, in Italian cooking with olive oil and garlic, sometimes with the addition of fresh basil, since there is a similar recipe in another Italian cookbook, The Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces and our family’s been making this sauce for years.

After some debate on how to put together this post, we decided upon a comic strip format and to present it in a slideshow. We both hope you enjoy it.

Here are some strips from the slideshow for a little peek if you’re reading this in your email or RSS feed. Click after the jump to see the slideshow and recipe.

I recently read Tara Austen Weaver’s (Tea and Cookies) The Butcher and the Vegetarian, and it had me thinking of my own experiences with vegetarianism. When I was little, my family and I were vegetarian. I remember once when my little sister, who had only eaten vegetarian with us, her family, ate chicken wings at a BBQ, and I flipped – I remember running around in circles, waving my arms around, freaking out to my parents that my sister had just eaten chicken wings, as though it were poison! My parents were very calm about it, they said it was okay, but that was over my head at the time – she’d eaten meat! That was all I was concerned about. Now, I just laugh about it.

Coming soon: a really nifty way to dice onions that I learned.

I think I’d had the intention of making soup when this sauce was created but as I started adding the green curry paste, tasting after each addition, until just right, I changed my mind. It was good just as it was. It tastes like it’s dairy, but it’s just coconut milk.

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It is important that the coconut milk is as thick as possible to ensure proper consistency and thickening as it chills. It also makes a great ice cream (see instructions). To make mint chocolate, add 1 teaspoon of pure mint extract after all the other ingredients are combined and fully incorporated.

Using a whisk, mix the cocoa powder into the coconut milk. Add honey. When the honey is added, ensure that all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed. It should have a relatively thick consistency, although the warmth of the honey may cut its thickness initially. Use as is, or chill in the fridge until it’s to the consistency of a spread (use as icing) or freeze to make ice cream.